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The Review - THEATRE by PAUL KEILTHY
Published: 17 January 2008

Chris Jack (Ferdinand) and Jessica Manley (Miranda) Photo: Talula Sheppard

Boldly going where no Bard has gone before – at warp speed, too

THE TEMPEST
Arts Theatre

THERE is a Star Trek moment at the start of every performance of the Tempest, when the cast has to turn a stolid stage into the deck of a storm-tossed ship on which even hardened mariners despair of life.
Largely irrelevant to the rest of the action, the storm allows directors a set-piece spectacular which sets the pace and tone for a play about urgency and escape.
The Tara company have aimed for an avowedly different Tempest, introducing an Islamic thread where none exists in the text and neatly drawing out the controlling drive of a Muslim Prospero over his veiled daughter Miranda.
But director Jatinda Verma’s storm scene fails, the actors’ gentle rocking resembling Sunday sailors at Cowes, and seems to cast a spell over the first half of a performance which, though hustled into 95 minutes, takes at least half that time to spark.
The insipid romance of Miranda and the shipwrecked Ferdinand is hastily despatched; the subjugation of Keith Thorne’s Caliban is barely resisted; only Caroline Kilpatrick’s Ariel offers any counterweight to Prospero.
It is his island, after all. When Robert Mountford’s Prospero faces down the shop-steward Ariel, the production slows down enough for the play to come to life.
Until January 27
0870 060 1742

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